Following the cancellation of The Sims-style life sim Life by You, Paradox has now shut down its developer.

Swedish games company Paradox, best known for Crusader Kings, Cities Skylines, and Stellaris, said it had “decided to cease further operations” in Berkeley, California-based Tectonic in a move that affects the studio’s 24 staff.

“This is difficult and drastic news for our colleagues at Tectonic, who’ve worked hard on Life by You’s Early Access release,” Fredrik Wester, CEO of Paradox Interactive, said.

“Sadly, with cancellation of their sole project we have to take the tough decision to close down the studio. We are deeply grateful for their hard work in trying to take Paradox into a new genre.”

Tectonic had worked on Life by You since 2019. It’s the latest in a string of recent failures from Paradox, which Wester has said will spark an evaluation of how the company manages its projects. “We have a very solid financial position and a strong core game portfolio, which keeps us confident about our future,” Wester insisted.

Last year’s disastrous release of Cities Skylines 2, which developer Colossal Order is still working to address, was just one title that hit Paradox’s bottom line as well as its reputation. In October 2023, Paradox called The Lamplighters League a “big disappointment” as it was forced to record a $22 million write-down. Paradox has also delayed jail sim Prison Architect 2 a number of times, the latest to this September after the discovery of “unexpected issues occurring too often.” The Paradox-published Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 has endured a troubled development too, although a release date now looks in sight.

The closure of Tectonic is the latest in a string of studio closures and layoffs that have hit the video game industry hard in recent years. Thousands of staff have been impacted by cuts right across the industry, with layoffs at the likes of Microsoft, Sony, and Embracer, to name a few. Just this week Embracer shut down Pieces Interactive after Alone in the Dark failed to meet sales expectations.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Elden Ring creator and FromSoftware president Hidetaka Miyazaki has said he won’t allow the devastating video game industry layoffs to affect his studio as long as he’s in charge.

Speaking to PC Gamer, Miyazaki said he can’t 100% guarantee FromSoftware will be safe from job losses — which have so far seen thousands lose their jobs across the likes of Embracer Group, Microsoft, and Sony — but wouldn’t allow it “as long as this company is [his] responsibility.”

FromSoftware is owned by Japanese organization Kadokawa Corporation so the decision isn’t wholly in Miyazaki’s hands, however. Microsoft, for example, shut down Redfall developer Arkane Austin alongside Hi-Fi Rush and Ghostwire Tokyo developer Tango Gameworks in May 2024 despite posting a 17% increase in revenue and $21.9 billion in profit in its latest financial earnings report.

But Miyazaki appeared confident Kadokawa shares his opinion on layoffs. “Speaking to myself and this company, I want to say that this is not something I would wish on the staff at FromSoftware in a million years,” he said. “I’m pretty sure our parent company Kadokawa understands that and shares that view.”

He then referenced former Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, who famously took a pay cut himself when profits were down instead of resorting to layoffs. “I sincerely doubt employees who fear that they may be laid off will be able to develop software titles that could impress people around the world,” Iwata said at the time.

Miyazaki echoed this statement. “I think it was the old ex-president of Nintendo, Iwata, who said ‘people who are afraid of losing their jobs are afraid of making good things.’ I’m paraphrasing that, but I totally share this view,” he said.

“I think it’s true, and I think the people at Kadokawa, our parent company, understand that I hold this view very strongly. While we can’t say 100% — we can’t say with complete certainty what the future’s going to hold for From and Kadokawa — at least as long as this company is my responsibility, that’s something I would not let happen. So hopefully our players and our fans can take a little bit of assurance from that.”

Miyazaki’s comments come just as Embracer shut down Alone in the Dark developer Pieces Interactive after the game failed to meet expectations. Pieces Interactive joins Free Radical Design, Onoma, and Volition Games as studios closed by Embracer in the last year amid layoffs affecting thousands of employees.

Image credit: Daniel Boczarski / Contributor at Getty Images

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.

Amid the increasing popularity of the Fallout franchise, some fans have called on Bethesda to remake the much-loved first two games in the series — but according to Bethesda Game Studios chief Todd Howard that’s not on the cards.

In an interview with YouTube channel MrMattyPlays, Howard said that some of the charm of Fallout 1 and 2 has to do with the fact they remain firmly rooted in the old-school PC role-playing game era of the mid-to-late 90s, so he’s happy to leave them where there while ensuring they run well.

“The main priority for us is to make sure they’re available and you can still play them,” Howard said. “So on the PC obviously they’re there for people to go and get and play, and making sure that they run okay. As far as beyond that, we’ve talked about it, but our priorities in terms of, hey let’s go do dev work and make certain things work, they haven’t been in those areas. So again, priority is, hey can people load it up and play it?

“We want it to load up and run well. The rest of it, I could argue some of the charm of games from that era and the original Fallouts is a little bit of that age. I would never want to paste over some of that with, well we changed how this works so it’s more modern. So as long as you can download it, as long as it loads up and runs, I’d like people to experience it the way it was.”

Led by Interplay producer Tim Cain, the original Fallout games enjoyed critical and commercial success on PC before the company collapsed. Elder Scrolls developer Bethesda later picked up the rights to the franchise and went on to release Fallout 3 in 2008, bringing the post-apocalyptic series into first-person and full 3D.

Despite their age and archaic design, Fallout 1 and 2 remain much-loved by fans of the series, and are often held up as two of the greatest role-playing games ever released. Indeed the recent franchise boost fueled by Amazon Prime’s breakout Fallout TV show affected the original games as well as the modern titles with increased player numbers across Steam.

And so, the calls to modernize Fallout 1 and 2 are louder than ever, but clearly Howard has more pressing matters to attend to, including ongoing updates for Fallout 76 and, eventually, Fallout 5, which is set to come out after The Elder Scrolls 6.

Howard even ruled out bringing Fallout 1 and 2 to console. “Anything is possible, but that’s going to be a longer dev throw,” he replied when asked if such a port were even possible. “And you have to ask yourself, is that where we want to put our time right now? Or is it best played the way it was on a PC? Right now, if you ask me, the best way to play it is on a PC, mouse and keyboard, the way it was.”

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead has followed up last week’s release of the game’s big balance update and premium warbond with a new patch that applies a long list of fixes.

The highlight is a fix for the Spear support stratagem, which has suffered all sorts of problems since the PC and PlayStation 5 co-op shooter launched earlier this year. What should be a reliable monster of a weapon has for so long been fickle, with its anti-tank homing missile failing to properly track locked-on targets.

According to the update 1.000.402 patch notes, there’s a fix for the Spear not targeting several entities (spawners, compound objects, etc). This should encourage more players to bring the Spear onto the battlefield.

And here’s another helpful fix: Hellbombs now get called down facing the player, rather than away from the player. Players have got used to Hellbombs facing away from them, so there will be a bit of unlearning to do with this one.

Arrowhead updated the known issues list, too, outlining what the studio is working on fixing with upcoming patches. Of note: the Bile Titan sometimes does not take damage to the head, and the Charger’s butt does not take damage from explosions. What an arse!

Last week was a big one for Helldivers 2 and Arrowhead, which recently revealed it was in the process of setting the studio up so it could “make more and better stuff” in the long-term. In an introductory post on reddit, new CEO Shams Jorjani, who recently replaced previous Arrowhead CEO and now current Chief Creative Officer Johan Pilestedt, said the studio has had to adjust to the enormous success Helldivers 2 has brought to the company.

Helldivers 2 is the fastest-selling PlayStation game of all time, having shifted an incredible 12 million copies in just 12 weeks since going on sale earlier this year. Amid the huge revenue Helldivers 2 has generated, Arrowhead itself has suffered a number of crises, including launch server problems and, most recently, a battle with Sony itself over the console maker’s controversial attempt to force Steam players to account link to PlayStation Network.

Helldivers 2 update 1.000.402 patch notes:

Overview

For this patch, we have made improvements and changes to the following areas:

• Quality of life improvements
• Crash fixes
• General bug fixes

Fixes

Crashes

• Fixed various crashes that would sometimes occur when changing settings.
• Fixed potential crash or corrupted font texture when changing the language
• Fixed a crash that might occur after exiting a mission.
• Fixed a crash that occurs when opening the social menu with more than 100 friends. As a result we have also limited the friends list visibility to 100. You will remain friends with anyone over 100, but you may not be able to see them if they are offline.
• Fixed crash when opening social menu and having many blocked players and/or friend requests.
• Fixed a crash when minimizing after changing fullscreen mode.
• Fixed rare crash which could occur when picking up equipment.
• Fix a crash when a client interacts with a terminal in a waiting state after host migration.
• Fix a crash related to minefields.

Misc Fixes

• Fix issues with dodge and prone.
• Fix not being able to stand up when wielding the ballistic shield.
• Fixed the Recoilless reload speed.
• Fixed issue where users couldn’t write a description on console when reporting a player.
• Fixes vehicle preview not despawning in Warbonds when quickly scrolling through the catalog.
• Fix Spear not targeting several entities (spawners, compound objects, etc).
• Sentries have a higher destruction value so most explosions do not instantly destroy them regardless of the damage amount.
• Fixed bug where operation progress would be lost when kicked due to inactivity,
• The “Remove Friend” and “Block Player” buttons are now hold-to-confirm instead of a single click.
• Fix bug where dying would try to enter ADS.
• Fix a soft lock if you receive an interact emote while holding a grenade.
• Fix projectile to crosshair inaccuracies in ADS when the player is in different stances
• Fixed broken player model in career tab when on someone else’s ship.
• Adjudicator: fixed incorrect recoil values.
• Fixed armory terminals losing their functionality if the last client player who interacted with them leaves the host’s ship.
• Fix missing localization for flying patrols operation modifiers.
• Fix issue where throwing knives could be left floating in the air.
• Support for non-latin fonts in the game’s install folder path.
• Vehicle skins are now applied to all vehicle variations when equipping directly from Warbonds.
• Fixes flag objectives not properly tracking Helldiver’s position while on a Combat Walker.
• PH-202 Twigsnapper helmet: fixed missing description.
• Fixed the issue where the shuttle would clip through Bile Titans and terrain during landing sequences.
• Improved performance on PS5 when CPU bound
• Fixes FX remaining when destroying Spore Spewer
• Ensure stim vfx remains on screen for the entire duration of the stim effect when med-kit bonus is present.
• Fix for emote receiver players being able to use their weapons during emote animation
• Hellbombs now get called down facing the player, rather than away from the player.

Known Issues

These are issues that were either introduced by this patch and are being worked on, or are from a previous version and have not yet been fixed.

• Sending friend requests via friend code in game currently does not work.
• Players may be unable to be joined or invited to the game.
• Players added to the ‘Recent Players’ list will appear in the middle of the list.
• Players may experience delays in Medals and Super Credits payouts.
• Available Operations are generated again after reconnecting after getting AFK kicked.
• Enemies that bleed out do not progress Personal Orders and Eradicate missions.
• Arc weapons sometimes behave inconsistently and sometimes misfire.
• Most weapons shoot below the crosshair when aiming down the sights.
• Plasma Punisher is unable to shoot out of the shield generators.
• Stratagem beam might attach itself to an enemy but it will deploy to its original location.
• “Hand Carts” ship module does not reduce Shield Generator Pack’s cooldown.
• Bile Titan sometimes does not take damage to the head.
• Charger’s butt does not take damage from explosions.
• Players may become stuck in the Loadout when joining a game in progress.
• Reinforcement may not be available for players who join a game in progress.
• Planet liberation reaches 100% at the end of every Defend mission.
• “Raise Flag of Super Earth” objective does not show a progress bar.
• Mission count in the Career tab is being reset to zero after every game restart.
• Some weapons’ descriptions are out-of-date and don’t reflect their current design.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.